Of Novels, Intelligence and Policymaking In the Service of Empire: Imperialism and the British Spy Thriller 1901–1914

Dr. Christopher R. Moran and Dr. Robert Johnson

In the decade before the First sure sign of this was a special World War, the British spy issue of the journal, Intelli- thriller was a cultural phenom- gence and National Security, enon drawing large and expect- published in 2008, devoted ant readerships across all entirely to “Spying in Film and classes and catapulting its Fiction.” Another indicator was In the decade“ before the authors to prominence as the appearance in June 2009 of First World War, the spokesmen for then widely a supplemental edition of Stud- British spy thriller was a prevalent concerns about impe- ies in Intelligence in which prac- cultural phenomenon rial strength, national power, ticing intelligence officers drawing large and and foreign espionage. Three considered contemporary fic- expectant readerships hundred is a conservative esti- tion in literature, film, and tele- mate of the number of spy nov- vision. across all classes. els that went into print between 1901 and 1914. This article Historiography on the subject reflects upon some of the semi- has tended to hinge on the issue nal publications from the of realism or, put another way, ” period, including Rudyard the symbiosis between real Kipling’s Kim (1901), the tale of spies and fictional spies. In a streetwise orphan who trains keeping with the growing influ- as a spy and becomes embroiled ence of “new literary histori- in the intelligence duel on cism,” which seeks to India’s North-West Frontier; demonstrate how both canoni- Erskine Childers’s The Riddle cal literature and, perhaps even of the Sands (1903), the story of more so, “low” or “popular” two gentleman yachtsmen who, works can be quarried for his- cruising in the North Sea, torical meaning, scholars like stumble upon a secret German Allan Hepburn have scruti- plot to invade England; and nized Kim and The Riddle to William le Queux’s Spies of the see whether they reconstitute Kaiser (1909), a dire prophecy the “intelligence cycle” with of German espionage in accuracy or even disclose advance of an invasion. tradecraft.1

In recent years, intelligence In The Great Game: The historians have become increas- Myths and Reality of Espio- ingly interested in spy fiction. A nage, Fred Hitz, a former inspector general of the Cen-

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of the authors. Nothing in the article should be construed as asserting or implying US gov- ernment endorsement of an article’s factual statements and interpretations.

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Unashamedly patriotic, their political sensibilities “finely tuned to the cadences of imperial decline,” authors wanted to see Unashamedly patriotic, their more being done by the authorities. political sensibilities “finely tuned to the cadences of impe- rial decline,” authors wanted to tral Intelligence Agency, sug- CIA, seem apposite: “The opera- see more being done by the gested that there is a clear tions of an intelligence service authorities. 5 For example, overlap between “real” intelli- and the plots of most spy sto- Kipling supported Lord Rob- gence, and the fiction of Kipling ries part company, never to erts’s call for a more robust and Childers. 2 In a recent arti- meet again.”4 defense of Empire; Childers cle for the Journal of Transat- sought to garner public opinion lantic Studies, Adam Svendsen Rather than appraising fin de in support of new naval bases proposed that the works of siècle spy novels as documenta- and a rapid expansion of the many spy novelists offer a near tion for the scholar of intelli- fleet; and le Queux demanded perfect window onto intelli- gence (and then immediately the creation of a domestic intel- gence processes. 3 In a field finding them wanting), we will ligence service to combat the notorious for its lack of declassi- consider the historical context German ogre, an enemy with fied material, Svendsen contin- within which they were pro- whom the day of reckoning was ues, intelligence history would duced and received. What inter- inevitable. We will also show be greatly enriched if scholars ests us about these texts is that here that certain authors invested a little more time they reflected real geopolitical quickly realized that whipping thumbing through fictitious anxieties that existed at the up popular concerns was a prof- renderings of the sub rosa time. Set against the backdrop itable enterprise. Le Queux was world. The fact that many of the “Great Game,” the pro- by far the wiliest, reaping mas- authors were themselves veter- tracted strategic conflict sive financial rewards by sensa- ans of intelligence is frequently between Britain, France, and tionalizing the extant threats highlighted to add credibility to Tsarist Russia in Central Asia, facing the nation. this sort of approach. Kim is dark meditation on Rus- sian imperial expansion and Admittedly, this is not entirely We are not, however, of the intrigues toward India. Brewed new ground. In their larger his- opinion that the spy thriller is within the atmosphere of tories of the British intelli- mimetic of real-life spying. national soul-searching at the gence community, Christopher While generally true-to-life end of the Boer War, The Rid- Andrew and Bernard Porter when it comes to the “period dle is a prophetic vision of the have both shown convincingly details” of intelligence (dis- Great War, making graspable how popular authors from the guises, sketch-books, etc.), spy the growing capacity of Ger- period were implicated in the novels are affected by commer- many as an adversarial sea business of “scare-mongering,” cial concerns such as the need power. Spies of the Kaiser, giving voice to a range of public for dramatic impact. As the meanwhile, ostensibly chroni- anxieties, from the vulnerabil- best-selling spy writer Graham cled the discovery of foreign ity of Britain’s defensive prepa- Greene concedes: “A novel espionage networks at a time rations to the specter of foreign based on life in Secret Service when minds were increasingly espionage. 6 David French, must necessarily contain a centered on the actual machi- David Trotter, and Nicholas large element of fantasy.” As nations of German intelligence. Hiley have also provided impor- outsiders, moreover, how can We contend in this article that tant contributions on the role of we hope to distinguish, with early 20th century spy fiction spy fiction in stirring up a hor- any certainty, the authentic was designed, above all else, to net’s nest of tension before the intrigue narratives from the alert both the government and First World War. 7 apocryphal yarns dressed up as the people of England to the “real”? The words of Allen vulnerabilities of the British We nevertheless feel that Dulles, former director of the Empire. there are two avenues that

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Certain spy novels carried huge weight in the defense councils require further analysis. First, of Empire, precipitating significant changes in actual policy- there is a tendency in the exist- making. ing literature to suggest that the threats discussed in spy fic- tion had little or no grounding carried huge weight in the is done now and the evil we in reality. Authors, it is often defense councils of Empire, pre- hope nipped before the flower, said, were spinning mysteries cipitating significant changes in thanks to me and thee.” out of airy nothings, so moti- actual policymaking. Although vated were they by commercial historically, officials demurred The literature on Kim is volu- 9 gains. Yet such a judgment at giving credence to works of minous and well-trodden. Crit- seems too conclusive: there is a fiction, between 1901 and 1914, ics of colonial discourse point to difference between exaggera- the opposite was true: intrigue a range of moral flaws in 10 tion and pure invention. Rus- narratives were taken seri- Kipling’s work. Edward Said, sia did annex strategically ously in the corridors of power. who in 2000 wrote an introduc- sensitive areas in Central Asia tion to a reprinted edition, felt that orientalist values perme- with the intention of putting I. Kim and the External diplomatic pressure on Britain; ated the novel to the extent Threat to Empire Germany was building a battle- that it was “a masterwork of imperialism.” 11 fleet with which to challenge In Kipling’s enigmatic story British imperial hegemony. Kim, the orphaned boy with Other scholars have dis- Authors, moreover, recognized mixed parentage is perfectly missed the idea that Kim con- that the best and most profit- suited to move between the tains any “reality” at all. Gerald able fantasy conveyed some real world of Europeans and the Morgan believed that it “owed truth. people of the colony and, as practically everything to such, is by far the best asset for Secondly, we would like to Kipling’s imagination”; the only maintaining surveillance and show how certain spy novels thing that was not an inven- gathering HUMINT. 8 Chal- tion was his use of the term lenged by Colonel “The Great Game.” 12 Morgan Creighton, the fic- argued there was no secret tional head of the world of intelligence through- Intelligence Depart- out either northern India or ment, to join his team Central Asia. He argued that of trained local even the Indian Survey Depart- agents, his missions ment, employing a number of ranged from eaves- Asian agents, was not engaged dropping to the inter- in intelligence work, stating ception of seditious that it was strictly limited to messages. Kipling gathering topographical infor- gave moral backing to mation. Morgan played down intelligence work by the importance of the actual suggesting that it Intelligence Department in safeguarded the India, maintaining that its empire and thwarted tasks were only really those of heinous plots. Mah- “collating information,” whilst bub Ali reassures the Political Service, formed in Kim that his delivery 1820, was little more than a of a key message diplomatic corps designed to ensured: “The game is send agents to neighboring Drawing of Rudyard Kipling published in The Book- 13 man in 1903. ©Lebrecht/Corbis well played. That war states.

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[The document’s] contents revealed the activities of “a Hindu banker in Peshawar, a firm of gun makers in Belgium and an all too familiar intelligence important semi-independent Mohammedan ruler.” dilemma: what were the enemy’s real intentions and capabilities in the region, and Agents rarely collected infor- positions of influence, and gun- what should the response be? mation on the Russians and runners from Europe who could had no powers to make trea- supply the latest firearms to an While some deplored alarmist ties. Their “special duty” was Indian force. The reference to a reactions to Russian expan- carried out quite openly with Mohammedan ruler not only sion, others pointed to evidence letters of introduction for the evoked concerns that a princely of more sinister designs: the rulers they visited. British offic- state might secretly foster sedi- discovery of secret Russian mil- ers, meanwhile, never entered tion against the Raj in defiance itary plans (1886); border skir- Russian territory without per- of British paramountcy, but also mishes between the Tsar’s mission. Morgan even ques- drew on imperial Islamophobia. forces and Britain’s Afghan tioned the success of the actual allies (1885, 1892, and 1894); intelligence officers, doubting if In the novel’s climax, Kim and the arrival of “shooting par- there was anything that they steals the plans of a Russian ties,” “scientific explorers,” and really achieved, beyond gather- and a Frenchman, who are car- armed Cossack patrols in the ing tidbits of geographical rying out clandestine survey mountain passes on India’s knowledge.14 work on the mountain northern border (1887 and approaches to India. He passes 1888). Such groups seemed to them, at the cost of his cover— suggest an intention to stir up II. Reflections of Reality in and almost his life—to Colonel the peoples of South Asia Kipling’s Kim Creighton back in Simla. Here, against British rule, perhaps as Kipling articulated a deep- a prelude to a more serious If, as we suggest, spy thrillers seated anxiety of the period. In attack through Afghanistan. reflected anxieties and aspira- 1894, the Franco-Russian Alli- tions of the period, to what ance brought together Britain’s Although the British had extent does Kim fulfill these chief colonial rivals and raised managed to crush the Indian concerns? Kim is portrayed as a the specter that Britain might Mutiny in 1857, there was boy familiar with intrigue. Ini- have to wage war on several widespread concern that they tially, he acts as a courier even fronts. Between 1894 and 1899, might have to fight a border though he did not understand when the novel was written, the war against tribesmen and Rus- the contents of the messages he Russian army marched into the sian forces, while trying to sup- carried, for “what he loved was Pamirs and, at Somatash, press an internal revolt at the the game for its own sake.” 15 clashed with the Afghans, same time. This internal Over time, however, he is whom Britain was pledged to dimension is often overlooked, drawn deeper into the world of protect. but the mood of the Indian pop- espionage. He delivers a vital ulation was an important ele- document to the head of Brit- Anxieties in Whitehall about a ment in the calculations of the ish intelligence in India. Its Russian threat to the landward British authorities. contents revealed the activities borders of India can be traced of “a Hindu banker in Pesha- back to the 1830s. They were Kipling was certainly well- war, a firm of gun makers in magnified, however, from the informed about the Great Belgium and an important 1870s onwards by the Tsarist Game. As a young journalist at semi-independent Moham- annexation of the khanates of Simla, he read Maj. Gen. medan ruler.”16 For spy chiefs, the old Silk Route, which Charles MacGregor’s Defence of the document highlighted a cat- brought the Russians closer to India (1884), which was alogue of threats: Imperial Rus- the subcontinent. Statesmen regarded as the handbook of sia, disloyal Indians in and military planners faced an the hawkish “Forward School.”

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In Kim, Kipling fused fictional British intelligence operations He was also briefed on the Rus- with the real work of the Indian Survey Department, which em- sian threat to the borders of ployed Asian agents with cryptonyms like “The Mirza” or E5. India by Maj. Gen. (later Lord) Frederick Roberts, commander- in-chief of the Indian Army. Affectionately known as “Our the single most important fea- Ali; the Indian master of dis- Bobs,” Roberts was a national ture of Imperial defense. He guises, Hurree Babu; and the hero, celebrated in novels, drafted no less than 20 reports mysterious agent E23. For paintings, and music. Kipling on the defense of India between Kipling, it was essential that a was in Simla with Roberts 1877 and 1893, advocated an successful intelligence organi- when the Penjdeh Incident increase in the size of the zation recruited from a target occurred—a moment when war Indian Army (especially Brit- region employed expert lin- with Russia appeared to be ish battalions), and champi- guists and, where possible, imminent. Moreover, Kipling oned the creation of an Indian exploited those who already knew that the frequent skir- Intelligence Branch to scout worked in the enemy’s senior mishes on the North-West beyond the frontier. 18 As an ranks. Frontier were fought to pacify admirer of Roberts, Kipling nat- the tribesmen who lived astride urally seized on these concerns The hiring of local Asian 21 the potential lines of communi- and adapted them in his story. 19 agents was common practice. cations into Afghanistan, Attachés, consuls and news- where, according to Roberts, the To fashion the novel’s back- writers—the name given to British Indian Army would drop, Kipling used his knowl- local spies hired by British have to fight the Russians. edge of Simla to create both political officers—gradually atmosphere and character: the became a more permanent Roberts advocated a “Scien- slums of Lahore provided the arrangement. There were “lis- tific Frontier” for India, not setting for Kim’s early life, tening posts” at Peshawar, along the administrative line whilst Lurgan Sahib was based Gilgit, Chitral, Kandahar, which marked the political bor- on the Armenian Jew, A.M. Kabul, Tehran, and Meshed der of India, but deep inside Jacob, who arrived in the can- from where local agents could Afghanistan along the water- tonment in 1871, and who was be dispatched. Ad hoc arrange- shed of the Hindu Kush. Dis- later ruined in 1891 after a pro- ments were made by more guised as a native, Kipling tracted legal case with the “nomadic” expeditions too, for emulated the Great Game Nizam of Hyderabad.20 example, by boundary commis- agents to move among the sions and by agents traversing In Kim, Kipling fused fic- Afghans and Pathans.17 He vis- the Hindu Kush or Pamirs. ited Jamrud and interviewed tional British intelligence oper- soldiers with experience in fron- ations with the real work of the Indian merchants could also tier warfare. He gleaned infor- Indian Survey Department, be used as the eyes and ears of mation through the social which employed Asian agents the Empire. James Onley has events of Simla. Kipling also with cryptonyms like “The shown, with reference to the drew inspiration from hiking in Mirza” or “E5,” to create a Persian Gulf, that Indian mer- the Himalayan foothills. hybrid organization deeply chants were important in creat- Indeed, the climax of Kim’s mis- engaged in counterintelligence ing access to local elites and sion is acted out in the same activities on the frontiers and their networks, and provided a remote mountain setting. within the Indian subconti- cheap and useful tool for estab- nent. Other than Colonel lishing a presence and perhaps Kipling’s conversations with Creighton (who, as “Control,” is “influence.” 22 The “Control” at Roberts were critical in shap- naturally British), Kipling’s the consulate at Meshed in ing Kim. Roberts believed that heroes are all Asian: the 1887, Colonel Charles the Russian threat to India was Afghan horse trader, Mahbub MacLean, employed Asian per-

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Since all empires are, ultimately, created and held by coercion, gathering intelligence about potential or actual threats was re- The simple fact was that the garded as essential to the survival of Britain’s Empire. colonial administrators were so small in number they did not have the capacity to construct sonnel in dangerous work. 23 He of which was subsequently pub- police states. Indeed, as Rich- reported that two messengers lished. Copies of reports con- ard Popplewell points out, there had been arrested in Merv, a taining intelligence with was contempt for the state small oasis settlement in Rus- potential military value went to apparatuses of Russia and sian Central Asia. Agents “I” the Indian Intelligence Branch. other Oriental despotisms: “A and “J” were compromised and strong aversion to the use of had to be discharged. An agent The need to gather intelli- spies was one of the alien tradi- in ring “C” went missing in gence on Central Asia was to tions of government which the November 1888 after being dis- assuage considerable fears of British brought to India.” 29 patched to get “photos of Rus- Russian capabilities and inten- Tracing numerous episodes of sian guns, troops and tions and to detect any where the British were badly barracks.” 24 attempts by Tsarist agents to informed, he shows that they convert the natives. This was sought to avoid harassment of According to MacLean’s especially important in the case the people, concluding: “What records, there were systematic of the Afghans and Pathans, they could not afford was to searches at the border, and who, living on or near the fron- alienate the Indian public on a despite precautions such as tiers, were beyond the full substantial scale. The mainte- using invisible ink in mes- reach of the authorities. The nance of British rule in India sages, more agents were going mountainous environment depended upon the acquies- 25 missing. The consuls’ duties made British fears about the cence and participation of the in Meshed were dominated by security of the frontier even ruled.”30 monitoring relations between more acute. Afghanistan and Persia, but Kipling’s India reveals the they also involved keeping a III. Kipling and the “Enemy depth of concern about the close watch on Russian Central threat to the Raj from the Within” Asia, particularly the routes native population, which lin- that any troops destined for The targets of British intelli- gered beneath the surface long India would have to take. 26 gence in the Empire were not after the traumas of the Indian just external enemies, but Mutiny. The police were tasked Asian and British agents, to detect subversion—they newswriters and attachés all internal subversives. Since all empires are, ultimately, cre- would achieve varying degrees sent their information either of success—but the authorities directly to the intelligence ated and held by coercion, gath- ering intelligence about were also eager to influence the departments of London and elites, the potential leaders of Simla, or to the Foreign Minis- potential or actual threats was regarded as essential to the revolt, and, where possible, to try of the Government of India, shape public opinion. As C.A. the governor of the Punjab survival of Britain’s Empire. What is striking about British Bayly argues, the idea was to (which had responsibility for regulate the means of commu- the North-West Frontier Prov- leaders, even in the heyday of imperialism in the 1890s, is nication so as to establish an ince until 1901) or, in the case “empire of opinion.” 31 of Persia and the Gulf, to the their consistent concern about security. Joseph Chamberlain Foreign Office. 27 The Indian The settings in Kipling’s work wrote in 1898: “We are the most native surveyors, the “Pun- are precisely at the margins of powerful Empire in the world, dits,” sent their geographical authority in the information but we are not all-powerful.” 28 material to the Topographical order, seeking out the sinister and Survey Department, some “hidden hand” of rebels and for-

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Kipling’s novel suffered too from this imperial blind spot; there eigners. More than that, the is no sense that the conspirators with which Kim and his col- assumption of Kipling’s India is leagues do battle have any legitimate cause, that disorder itself is threaten- ing, with no acknowledgement of the inherently undemocratic their treachery toward the Roberts felt that the British nature of British colonial rule Empire and their dependence people supported a robust impe- that would make protest neces- on foreign support. Instead, rial defense policy.35 The press sary. Indeed, there was a ten- Kipling’s idealized world is one and the enfranchised public dency to conflate protest and where British intelligence is could be used as tools to exert threat and to see all pubic alert to the dangers, operates pressure on governments that expressions of anger and frus- within the sub-strata of native did not exhibit sufficient tration as indicative of latent society, and thwarts the con- resolve. When Roberts returned native fanaticism. The sheer spirators to maintain British from the South African War, he size of the native population security. was convinced that Britain’s meant that public disorder had voluntary system of enlistment to be taken seriously, and, as a Between 1899 and 1901, when was no longer adequate. He set general rule, prompt coercive Kipling was writing Kim, the up the National Service League action was preferred. Muslims, Army in India was deployed to and asked if Kipling would particularly those astride the restore order no fewer than 69 “write some stirring lines to 33 frontier, were not only well times. Concerns that the bring home to the public the armed and numerous, but also police were unreliable to the danger of allowing ourselves to saw the Afghan king as their point of mutiny, not to mention be a second time in the same natural leader or, in the the difficulties of gathering risky position without any prop- extreme, the caliph of the Otto- intelligence before an insurrec- erly trained troops in the man Empire. tion broke out, meant that the country.” 36 army was a vital instrument in When it came to the intercep- maintaining order. Kipling was Kipling was an eager recruit. tion of nationalist agitators, aware of its importance, and it He was appalled by the fact who began a bombing and is not purely coincidental that a that successive Liberal govern- assassination campaign before British regiment features so ments had neglected the army, the First World War, there was prominently in Kim, making its given concessions to the Boers, little enthusiasm to consider presence felt by “showing the and vacillated over Home Rule political reforms. There were, flag.” Lord Roberts wrote: for Ireland, all of which were nevertheless, considerable critical issues for the Empire. efforts to track down the con- We cannot afford to let Kipling, however, did not share spirators who were directing our Native troops or the Roberts’s faith in the British the terrorist campaign from people of India doubt the people and publicly criticized outside India. As Popplewell maintenance of our the complacency that seemed to has demonstrated, this led to supremacy, which they prevail. the surveillance of agitating certainly would if we were to allow Russia to over- movements in Britain and IV. “A Yachting Story with Asia.32 run Afghanistan. We must let it be clearly seen that a Purpose”: Erskine Kipling’s novel suffered too we do not fear Russia, Childers and The Riddle of from this imperial blind spot; and that we are deter- the Sands there is no sense that the con- mined she shall not spirators with which Kim and approach near enough to The Edwardian period was a his colleagues do battle have India to cause us serious time of much anxiety and inse- any legitimate cause, and their trouble in our rear.34 curity for the British Empire. moral weakness is confirmed by Although the South African

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In challenging the Royal Navy’s dominance of the seas, the tra- ditional linchpin of national security, the Kaiser undermined the gratulating him on repelling wisdom of diplomatic isolation and provoked a state of pro- the Jameson Raid, a sortie on found unease. the Transvaal from the British- controlled Cape Colony. Upon his return from the Boer War, War (1899–1902) had been won, Britain’s defensive prepara- therefore, he resolved himself to many Britons were left wonder- tions. write a “yachting story, with a ing how the British Army, num- purpose.” That purpose was to bering almost half a million The air thick with fear and rouse the government to the soldiers, had taken nearly three uncertainty, the spy novel German threat. years to defeat a guerrilla force began to reproach the authori- of roughly 60, 000 men. Goaded ties for what it saw as a chronic The Riddle occupied much of into the conflict by the British, lack of preparedness against Childers’s time between spring the outnumbered Boers evoked potential invasion. By any yard- 1901 and winter 1902. He was great international sympathy, stick, the most famous spy not, by his own admission, a especially in France and Ger- thriller to address this was naturally accomplished writer many, leaving the British Erskine Childers’s 1903 novel of fiction. It is clear from his devoid of both friends and The Riddle of the Sands. Born correspondences that he felt allies. In an age increasingly into the governing class and constrained by the medium and influenced by the doctrine of schooled at Haileybury College, hampered by the need to pro- “survival of the fittest,” as the principal Victorian training vide titillation and a sense of much between nations as indi- ground for Britain’s colonial climax consistent with literary viduals, certain voices sug- elite, Childers was a staunch conventions. “I fear the story is gested that England had imperialist. 38 “One can set no beyond me,” he lamented in one somehow “gone soft” and that limits to the possibilities of an letter. 40 “There is no sensation, the nation was deteriorating alliance of the English speak- only what it meant to be con- physically. ing races,” he declared in a let- vincing fact,” he grieved in ter to Basil Williams, a close another. 41 Testament to the public mood, friend, in October 1903.39 in 1905 a pamphlet entitled Having finally submitted the “The Decline and Fall of the The South African War deeply draft shortly before Christmas British Empire” sold 12,000 colored Childers’s thinking. 1902, Childers’s worst fears copies in just six months. 37 Brit- Shocked at the ease with which were soon confirmed, when his ish eyes also began to turn ner- British forces had met their publisher, Reginald Smith of vously toward Germany, which, match at the hands of guerril- Smith, Elder & Co, returned seeking its “place in the sun” las, he developed an uncomfort- the manuscript forthwith, ask- commensurate with its rising able feeling that the Empire ing for “drastic” revisions. “My industrial strength, deter- was in mortal danger. Childers experience is that people will mined that Weltpolitik was became particularly concerned not take their literary publica- impossible without the con- about Germany, which had tions in the close pemmican struction of a High Seas Fleet. made no secret of its sympathy fare which you adopt,” In challenging the Royal Navy’s for the Boers (even supplying explained Smith. 42 With its dominance of the seas, the tra- armaments against the British forensic attention to detail, par- ditional linchpin of national troops). Like most of his fellow ticularly with respect to all security, the kaiser under- countrymen, he had been things nautical, the draft had mined the wisdom of diplo- appalled by the notorious none of the “flow and glow” matic isolation and provoked a Kruger Telegram in 1896, a required of a work of fiction. state of profound unease con- message sent by Kaiser Wil- While caviar to the yachting cerning the vulnerability of helm II to the president of the fraternity, Childers’s extensive South African Republic, con- use of cartographic materials

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What really troubled the publisher about the manuscript was (see below), delineating (with the complete omission of women. exact depth indications) the tel- lurian sands and archipelagos of the North Sea mudflats had Sailing was a school of charac- ing all that was good about the the potential to “frighten the ter, saying much for the grit adventurous English character, [general] reader away.” “The and hardihood of young Brit- who lark about in a small man who reads a work of imagi- ons; maps demonstrated the seven-ton yacht—the Dulci- nation, however clearly founded ease with which England could bella—and explore islands in on fact, is in a word not ener- be invaded; while lashings of the North Sea. getic,” tutored Smith. 43 romance undermined the seri- ous message contained in the When off the Frisian Islands What really troubled the pub- book. After much procrastina- duckshooting and incidentally lisher about the manuscript tion on both sides, a compro- fathoming the shoals and inlets was the complete omission of mise was eventually reached: thereabouts, they discover that women. As it stood, The Riddle the maps would not be cut; the the Germans, with the aid of an was very much a man’s book. It book would now have a “love armada of shallow draft boats, is worth remembering that, by interest.” “I was weak enough plan to send troops across from the dawn of the 20th century, to spatchcock a girl into it and the sand berms that adorn the women (ever more literate fol- find her a horrible nuisance,” lonely stretch of coast between lowing advances in education grumbled Erskine in a private Holland and Denmark. This provided for girls, but still letter. 44 was to be a surprise attack or, largely excluded from the pub- in military parlance, a coup de lic sphere) had become big con- What then of the finished main. sumers of fiction. At Smith’s product? Drawing upon insistence, therefore, the narra- Childers’s own experiences of With no shore defense on the tive had to offer more in the sailing along the German coast, East Anglian coast, and no way of feminine interests. which brought to the narrative British fleet permanently sta- an astonishing verisimilitude, tioned in the North Sea, the For Childers, the thought of The Riddle tells the story of two two sailors conclude that a Ger- less sailing, fewer charts and patriotic duffers—Messrs. Car- man D-Day, if launched, was more women was anathema. ruthers and Davies—embody- bound to succeed. Mr. Davies points the finger of blame at Britain’s “blockheads of statesmen.” 45 At another point in the text, he gives the bluff declaration, “Those Admiralty chaps want waking up.” 46

Thankfully for England, the mudlark and his companion foil the fiendish plot before it is too late. As if the propaganda mas- querading as fiction was not enough, Childers also provided a postscript, which reminded readers about the growing capacity of Germany as a sea power —“We have no North Sea naval base, no North Sea Fleet, and no North Sea policy”—and

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Among Childers’s more distinguished admirers was Kipling, who, from the 1890s onwards, was repeatedly denouncing his The book’s success was no countrymen in the press for failing to prepare or take a firm fluke. Childers’s skill as an stand against the “shameless Hun.” author was to sense and to seize on glib contemporary talk about imperial collapse and for- called for the creation of a vol- a “Boston Newspaper” rhapso- eign threats. The timing of its unteer naval reserve, one that dized: “The author must be publication was in one sense would take advantage of the credited with an ability brilliantly done to make maxi- unquenchable enthusiasm and amounting to genius, to be com- mum impact of the fallout from untapped talents of the cruis- pared in the minutia of his art the South African War, when ing fraternity. only to Defoe and in the questions about national resources and fertility of his strength and efficiency, as well The published version of The imagination to Robert Louis as the wisdom of diplomatic iso- Riddle is less acerbic in its Stephenson.” 48 lation, dominated both public treatment of Germany than the and official discourse. draft manuscript. Whereas the As England’s newest literary draft is embroidered with Ger- sensation, Childers received The book’s release also coin- manophobia, describing its many letters of congratulation. cided with the first wave of real cafés as “hostile” and referring “You have written one of the public anxiety about Germany, to the “unconquered spirit” and most original books,” gushed with whom relations had soured “iron heel of Prussia,” the pub- W.D. Howells. “Your people are markedly. By 1903, many lished copy rejects nationalist wonderfully life-like. Davies is island-folk were concerned that stereotyping and implies that extraordinarily good, and the the Royal Navy was about to Germany is motivated by Real- whole thing perfectly lose its mastery of the seas, thus politik rather than circumstanced.” 49 In a particu- increasing the possibility of ruthlessness. 47 Nevertheless, larly sycophantic letter, a Mr. invasion. Only a year earlier, in the kaiser banned the book, and K. Ward from Stanthorpe a speech to the Reichstag, Vice it is said that when Childers County Durham, wrote that the Admiral Livonius of the Ger- next went sailing in the Baltic, book had “stirred in me a fresh man navy had boldly pro- German spies followed his desire…to do a little for my nounced: movements. country,” prompting him to form a local rifle club presumably Carrying out a landing on The Riddle was published in from where well-intentioned the English coast has been May 1903. Sales of the book patriots could be trained to kill greatly increased by the were more than ample to jus- the “Boche.” 50 introduction of steam tify the effort put into it. By the power. The possibility of end of the year, it had become a Among Childers’s more distin- steaming by night with best seller, going through three guished admirers was Kipling, lights covered in order to editions, plus a cheap “penny- who, from the 1890s on, was escape the enemy’s obser- packet” issue that sold more repeatedly denouncing his vation, have much than 100,000 copies. Reviewed countrymen in the press for reduced the advantages of widely in the press, the book failing to prepare or take a firm England’s insular was greeted with widespread stand against the “shameless position. 51 critical acclaim. The Westmin- Hun.” As well as excellent sales ster Gazette, which, as its title and reviews, The Riddle Under Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ger- indicates, sought to be influen- brought Childers, an eligible many had begun launching its tial in parliamentary circles, bachelor, to the front ranks of pre-dreadnought fleet, some of called it a “literary accomplish- London’s social scene. the largest and fastest war- ment of much force and origi- ships ever built. A popular nality”; an anonymous critic of image was that of the kaiser—

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Pressure from backbenchers, especially those representing kitted out in medals, sword and East Coast constituencies, prompted Lord Selbourne to ask polished boots—breaking cham- the Naval Intelligence Division for a detailed report on the fea- pagne bottles over the bows of sibility of a German invasion as outlined in the book. impressive steam-powered ves- sels. Convinced that Nemesis was close at hand and saddled only thing which really mat- East Coast constituencies, with xenophobic paranoia, the ters,” he went on, “is ships— eventually prompted Lord Sel- British press did nothing to believe me.” 53 bourne to ask the Naval Intelli- subdue tensions, beating the gence Division (NID) for a patriotic drum and whipping up By contrast, Hugh Arnold-For- detailed report on the feasibil- popular enthusiasm for reme- ster, then parliamentary secre- ity of a German invasion as out- dying the very strategic defi- tary to the Admiralty, was lined in the book. The most 54 ciencies of which Childers had unreservedly impressed. As recent inquiry, carried out in protested. was the highly influential Vic- 1902 on the assumption that torian war hero, Lord Wolseley, France represented the main Demands for the government formerly commander-in-chief of threat, had concluded that to “do something” were not in the British forces: invasion was “not an eventual- fact being ignored. Weeks ity which we need seriously The subjects it deals with before The Riddle was due to go consider.” 56 to press, the Admiralty are most interesting. Few announced that it had selected men in England have After sending a “couple of a site on the Firth of Forth for a studied the question of the experts” to reconnoiter the Fri- new North Sea naval base, invasion of these islands sian Coast, the NID reached causing Childers to insert a more closely than I have the same conclusion, pointing hasty postscript to the effect. A done. When men perhaps out that the “want of railways year earlier, His Majesty’s Gov- laugh at this expression of and roads, the shallowness of ernment had set up a Commit- mine, I always content the water, the configuration of tee of Imperial Defence to myself with reminding the coast, not to mention the consider the expanding Ger- them that I attach more terrific amount of preparation man battlefleet and its poten- weight to the opinions of of wharves, landing-places, tial intentions. Napoleon, Wellington, causeways, sheds and whatnot Nelson and Collingwood, besides, would have rendered a Lord Selbourne, the First than I do to theirs. 55 secret embarkation Lord of the Admiralty, took impossible.” 57 “As a novel it is great interest in The Riddle (“I For Wolseley, what made the excellent; as war plan it rub- read [it] with much pleasure”), book more than ordinarily bish,” was the assessment of but with reservations. In a pri- interesting was the minuteness Lord Louis Battenberg, direc- of detail with which the narra- vate letter, he disputed the tor of naval intelligence. 58 claim of “No North Sea Policy,” tive was loaded, the apparent suggesting that, “like so many perfect familiarity with the This was not, however, the other writers, he [Childers] scene of the events described. last of establishment interest in takes it for granted that noth- Sailing the North Sea was The Riddle. On 27 January ing goes on at the Admiralty, or known to be one of the author’s 1906, Childers received a let- is done by the Admiralty, except hobbies, and it was clear that ter—marked “Secret”—from what the public happens to his personal experiences had Julian Corbett, who, only added a semblance of truth to know.” 52 Selbourne rejected the months before, had become the book’s emphasis on the Forth as what was, at its core, a pretty Admiralty’s unofficial strategic an essential buffer against Ger- far-fetched narrative. adviser. Corbett explained that man attack as representative of the Admiralty was “anxious” to Pressure from backbenchers, get some information about the a “very common delusion”; “the especially those representing

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[The Riddle] set the stage for a whole slew of fictionalized spy stories that dealt with the specter of German invasion. In illustrating both the com- mercial rewards and political leverage that could be had from Frisian Coast but had not land, he asked Childers the fol- the deceptive blending of fact thought it “expedient to send lowing: and fiction—or “faction”—it set anyone to get it just now.”a59 the stage for a whole slew of fic- • Are they are defended and to tionalized spy stories that dealt Being an expert on the North what extent? with the specter of German Sea, Childers was invited to invasion. As the next section • What facilities do they pos- lunch with Captain Charles will discuss, perhaps Childers’s sess both on harbors and on Ottley, Battenberg’s successor greatest legacy was in laying the open beaches for landing? as DNI. During the luncheon, the foundation for the anti-Ger- Childers handed over copies of man crusades of William le all of his nautical charts, delin- • What size ships can approach and lie in their harbors? Queux, who, in concert with eating pilotage and topographi- military careerists like Lt. Col. cal details. A few months later, • Have the buoys been removed James Edmonds, played a part Childers was contacted by since the publication of your in the creation of Britain’s mod- Francis Gathorne-Hardy from book? ern intelligence service and the War Office Staff College. thus changed the course of an With a view to possible raids on • In your opinion, is there an empire. the North German Coast, in the easier landing that could be event of war, the War Office had effected on any other point?61 instructed Gathorne-Hardy to V. The Germans are collect geostrategic intelligence Once again, Childers fur- Coming!: The Fiction of on the area and on the locali- nished the authorities with all William le Queux ties. During his researches, he that he could. On Gathorne- had found that the existing War Hardy’s insistence, Childers After The Riddle, as Christo- Office charts were hopelessly was required to keep secret his pher Andrew argues, an out of date, noting: “I find [us] dealings with the War Office, increasingly prominent feature rather lacking on since it “was not considered of Edwardian spy fiction was information.” 60 good form in England even to the seditious work of German think of protection, much less spies. 65 If not for literary style Having identified Borkum, retaliation.”62 and grace, then certainly for Wangerooge and the Sylt success and influence, the Islands as possible bases from Over time, The Riddle became author typically associated with which to launch an amphibious core reading for anyone the devilish intrigues of the assault upon the German main- involved in naval policy or espi- German Secret Service was onage. In April 1908, the Admi- William le Queux. Averaging rality ordered 117 copies for use five novels a year until his in its “Fiction Libraries.” 63 In death in 1927, he was among a In 1910, the somewhat dilatory Admi- 1912, the War Office issued a the highest paid fiction writers ralty did send two spies to the Frisian secret handbook, entitled The of his time, earning 12 guineas Islands. Unfortunately, in what became an international cause célèbre, Lt. Vivian Special Military Resources of per 1,000 words (roughly $1,000 Brandon and Capt. B.F. Trench were both the German Empire, which in today’s money), the same detected and arrested by the Germans praised the “brilliant imagina- rate as H.G. Wells and Thomas and pardoned by the kaiser three years tion of the author of ‘The Rid- Hardy. An habitué of London later. During his trial in the imperial court at Leipzig, Brandon caused scenes of dle of the Sands’” and implored clubland and inexhaustibly hysteria when he revealed that he had agents to familiarize them- well-traveled across some of the read The Riddle not once, but “three selves with its content. 64 Continent’s most elite resorts, times.” See “British Spies Sentenced,” le Queux claimed to know Daily News, December 1910.

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Obsessed with the end of empire and fearing the encroach- everyone in Europe worth ment of “beastly foreigners” into the United Kingdom, le Queux knowing, from Queen Alexan- began to forward reports to the Foreign Office. dra, reputedly his biggest fan, to Emile Zola, the celebrated French writer who was instru- come, The Battle of Dorking informant in Berlin. 69 With no mental in exonerating the (1871), which ended with the evidence to corroborate his alle- falsely convicted army officer British being soundly defeated, gations, however, the authori- Alfred Dreyfus. Throughout his The Great War in England con- ties dismissed the reports as career, le Queux presented him- cluded with English victory. wishful thinking. self as a spymaster, who, with an intimate knowledge of for- Five years later, published His pleas falling on deaf ears, eign espionage, battled das- only months after the Fashoda le Queux adopted a new tardly foreign nationals in the Incident, the territorial dispute approach, using his social skills service of the British govern- between Britain and France in and immense clubability to ment. To this day, many of le the Sudan, England’s Peril seek, and acquire, the friend- Queux’s distant relatives main- (1899) introduced readers to ship of senior crown servants. tain that he was killed by Bol- Gaston La Touche, the villain- By early 1906, he had gained a shevik thugs, while working as ous chief of the French Secret valuable ally in Admiral Lord a secret agent in the Soviet Service. In England’s Peril, a Charles Beresford, one of the Union. 66 member of Parliament has his most admired naval officers of head blown off by, it eventually his generation, considered by The lessons of the Boer War transpires, an explosive cigar. many to be a personification of bit deeply into le Queux’s By 1906, as bad blood began to John Bull. Eager to promote his psyche: “History tells us that an arise between Britain and the views about the development of Empire which cannot defend its kaiser, following the start of the the fleet, Beresford lent his own possessions must inevita- dreadnought race that threat- great public voice to numerous bly perish,” he would later ened to render obsolete British write. 67 Like Childers, he set battleship supremacy, out to use fiction as a vehicle Germany replaced France for political pamphleteering, as the main enemy in le designed to awaken the govern- Queux’s novels. As David ment to the uncomfortable Stafford argues, like any truth that England had become successful author, he idle and complacent, whereas “kept an eye on the shift- rival nation states were fast ing tides of public becoming virile and purposeful. opinion.” 68

In common with military Obsessed with the end threat assessment at the turn of empire and fearing the of the century, he had in fact encroachment of “beastly started his literary career not foreigners” into the as a Germanophobe, but as a United Kingdom, le Francophobe, predicting con- Queux began to forward flict between England and reports to the Foreign France. In 1894, he shot to Office, which, taken at fame with The Great War in face value, confirmed the England in 1897, which existence of a German depicted an attempted French spy network in Britain. invasion. Unlike George These reports, he Chesney’s earlier tale of war-to- claimed, came from an

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Northcliffe rejected the first draft. His main objection was that the invading German army avoided the major cities, and thus bridges, rail tracks and coal the majority of Daily Mail readers. staithes. Newspaper serialization came articles written by le Queux on Col. Cyril Field and Major Mat- with a special map, illustrating the need for preparedness. son; he even spent four months the regions and towns where touring the southeast of the Germans were to be concen- Le Queux’s most important England in order to map out trated. Just south of Cam- coadjutor was Lord Roberts. the most likely invasion route. bridge, there was to be the Just as the famous general had As he wrote in the preface, the “Great Battle”; in the fields assisted Kipling, he shared le aim was to “bring home to the between Loughborough and Queux’s anxiety about Britain’s British public vividly and forc- Leicester, there was to be “Con- unreadiness for a major contest ibly what really would occur siderable Fighting.” 72 Readers of arms: “My dear William, the were an enemy suddenly to were instructed to keep the world thinks me a lunatic also, appear in our midst.” 71 map for reference—“It will be because, after forty years ser- valuable.” vice in India, I have come home A tough taskmaster, Northc- and dared to tell England that liffe rejected the first draft. His The Invasion was explicit in she is unprepared for war.” 70 As main objection was that the agitating for a system of president and moving spirit of invading German army avoided national service and in its the National Service League, a the major cities, and thus the denunciation of Britain’s slum- pressure group for compulsory majority of Daily Mail readers. bering statesmen for failing to military training, Roberts saw To rectify this, le Queux was prepare for a possible invasion. an alliance with le Queux as an required to devise a new route, Splashed across the top of each opportunistic way of canvass- one where sales took prece- extract was the eye-catching ing public support for conscrip- dence over accuracy. headline, “WHAT LORD ROB- tion, opposed by many people at ERTS SAYS TO YOU,” followed the time for smacking of conti- The Invasion began its serial- by: “The catastrophe that may nental militarism. ization on 13 March 1906. In happen if we still remain in our London, itinerant sandwich- present state of unprepared- Having secured the priceless board men, employed by the ness is vividly and forcibly imprimatur of Lord Roberts, le Daily Mail and dressed in illustrated in Mr. le Queux’s Queux began to plan for The spiked helmets, Prussian uni- new book, which I recommend Invasion of 1910, a graphic forms and bloodstained gloves, to the perusal of everyone who imagining of a successful inva- bellowed at city workers, warn- has the welfare of the British sion of England by a 40,000- ing them of the Hun’s arrival in Empire at heart.” 73 strong German army. Funding the nation’s capital. The story for the project was provided by was centered on German troops The Invasion was a huge suc- Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of advancing inland, until they cess, boosting the Daily Mail’s Britain’s first mass-circulation eventually reached London. As circulation and, in book form, newspaper, the Daily Mail. As a they went, the fierce, jack- selling over 1 million copies in pathological Germanophobe, booted soldiers despoiled farm- 27 languages. Although the lit- with an instinctive flair for a land, looted churches, violated erary cognoscenti berated the profitable story, Northcliffe was women, mutilated babies and somewhat primitive composi- only too willing to stump up the bayoneted resistance fighters. tion of the writing, le Queux cash in return for exclusive Le Queux described how a hun- could not have been happier. serialization rights. dred German spies, prior to the With Roberts on his side, he assault, had paralyzed Brit- established his bona fides as a Striving for realism, le Queux ain’s defenses by cutting tele- serious author; with North-cliffe consulted military experts like phone lines and destroying offering column-inches, he had a

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Moreover, because they were gentlemen, they somehow made suitable forum for his anti-Ger- spying acceptable, even honourable, to a readership brought man views; and with high sales, up to believe that espionage was a dirty trade. he now had ample private means to fund his counterespio- nage work. Encouraged by the Le Queux was, of course, not believe that espionage was a public’s response, le Queux and the only fiction writer trans- dirty trade. Roberts founded a voluntary fixed with the sinister machina- Secret Service Department, a tions of German spies. Le Though others had muscled in group of amateur spy hunters Queux’s biggest rival was the on the genre, le Queux ulti- devoted to gathering informa- self-styled “Prince of Storytell- mately trumped them all with tion “that might be useful to our ers,” E. Phillips Oppenheim. An Spies of the Kaiser. Published in country in case of need.”74 outspoken critic of unprepared- 1909, and preceded by an ness, Oppenheim demanded the advertising campaign in the By contrast, the government internment of enemy aliens and Weekly News offering readers was not amused. In Parlia- supported Lord Roberts’s cam- £10 for information on “Foreign ment, Prime Minister Sir paign for the introduction of Agents in Britain,” Spies pitted Henry Campbell-Bannerman compulsory national service Ray Raymond—“a patriot to his said that le Queux was a “per- among able-bodied men. heart’s core”—against literally nicious scaremonger” and sug- thousands of German spies, gested that the story risked Central to Oppenheim’s yarns, most of them nestled in the inciting war between England as with those of Childers and le English countryside, disguised and Germany. 75 This is not to Queux, was the importance of as landlords, waiters, and bar- say, however, that officials could the gifted amateur. Typically bers. In detailing the German ignore the invasion bogey. Pub- well-born and wealthy, heroes hidden hand, le Queux was ada- lic pressure to reconsider the were accidental rather than mant that his novel was based question of overseas attack professional spies, always prov- on “serious facts,” unearthed caused Campbell-Bannerman to ing, under severe test, to be of over a 12-month period touring appoint a subcommittee of sterling worth. In The Great the United Kingdom: Committee of Imperial Defence, Secret (1907), the lead charac- which met 16 times between ter—while in London playing As I write, I have before 27 November 1907 and 28 July cricket for his county—is inad- me a file of amazing docu- 1908, and included dignitaries vertently drawn into defending ments, which plainly like David Lloyd George and his nation when he discovers a show the feverish activity Edward Grey. On the first day German spy ring operating with which this advance of the group’s convening, testi- from the Café Suisse in Soho. guard of our enemy is mony was given by none other As both David Stafford and working to secure for their than Lord Roberts. During his David Trotter have argued, rul- employers the most 78 time in the spotlight, the aging ing-class amateurs “were not detailed information. military hero rehashed the only heroes in their own right To combat this menace, the invasion plan as predicted by le but also guardians of the social book championed the creation Queux’s melodrama. To the hierarchy”; set apart by their of a professional counterintelli- delight of Sir John Fisher, then gentlemanliness, they repre- gence service, a message that first sea lord and father of the sented a “symbol of stability” in chimed with public fears of ultra-modern dreadnought, the a time of increasing working- invasion—now at “fever-pitch” sub-committee concluded that class agitation. 77 Moreover, with the kaiser’s announce- an invasion was untenable so because they were gentleman, ment in late 1908 of an acceler- long as a large, technologically- they somehow made spying ated shipbuilding program. 79 advanced navy was acceptable, even honourable, to Frightened members of the maintained. 76 a readership brought up to public inundated the novelist’s

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This assessment, derived not from hard facts…but from infor- mation ascertained from amateur spycatchers, led directly to espionage and for accu- the formation of the Secret Service Bureau. rately determining its extent or objectives. 85 mailbox with alleged sightings consider “the nature and extent This assessment, derived not of German spies. Letters of foreign espionage that is at from hard facts reported by the detailed German espionage in present taking place within this police authorities, but from all its forms, from the surveil- country.” 82 Edmonds, the com- information ascertained from lance of beaches, fortifications, mittee’s chief witness, informed amateur spycatchers, led and shipyards to the purloin- members of a rapid rise in directly to the formation of the ing of secret treaties, war plans, “cases of alleged German espio- Secret Service Bureau, forerun- and blueprints. Although the nage”: five in 1907; 47 in 1908; ner of MI5 and MI6, in late majority of these reports were and 24 in the first three months 1909. pure fantasy, le Queux ear- of 1909.83 Of the 24, le Queux nestly forwarded them to had provided five—although, in Historical research has now Lt.Col. James Edmonds, head the service of anonymity, he proved beyond any doubt that of MO5, the fledgling counterin- was referred to only as a “well- no such “extensive system of telligence section of the War known author.” The individuals German espionage” existed. Office Directorate of Military accused by le Queux of being Between August 1911 and the Operations. German spies included: a outbreak of the Great War, MI5 cyclist who swore in German apprehended and tried only a Convinced of the existence of when nearly run over by the handful of suspected spies. enemy spies (“nearly every Ger- author in his motorcar; a Ports- Although the spy ring of Gustav man clerk in London spends his mouth hairdresser, named Sch- Steinhauer was rounded up, the holidays on biking or walking weiger, who apparently took German spymaster ran no more tours in the eastern much interest in navy gossip than 20 poorly trained agents, counties”), 80 but also with one and consorted with officers; and focused for the most part on riv- eye on securing funding for his a retired captain, called Max ers and beaches rather than own fledgling outfit, Edmonds Piper, who was believed to act military installations. What had long been nagging Richard as a “go-between” for German this underlines is the fact that Haldane, secretary of state for agents based in the United in 1909 officials had been com- war, on the shortcomings of Kingdom.84 pletely deceived. In success- British espionage. Haldane, fully hoodwinking the who still harbored hopes of a Astonishingly, le Queux and establishment into a state of rapprochement with Germany, his associates’ material was total delusion, le Queux—unbe- had hitherto demurred at this instrumental in persuading lievably—had played a key role assessment, believing that members to reach the conclu- in the creation of the modern enemy agents were really “the sion: British intelligence community. apparatus of the white slave traffic.” 81 For Edmonds, there- The evidence which was The Great War gave le Queux fore, le Queux’s “evidence” was produced left no doubt in the ideal canvas on which to a godsend. the minds of the commit- paint his political beliefs. In no tee that an extensive fewer than 40 novels relating to By early 1909, the tradition- system of German espio- the conflict, published between ally unflappable Haldane had nage exists in this 1914 and 1918, he argued for judged that le Queux’s reported country, and that we have more counterespionage, bigger sightings, however far-fetched, no organization for keep- ships, and a stronger stand had just enough plausibility to ing in touch with that against immigration. Con- merit an investigation. In vinced that every stranger with March, he set up a committee to a guttural accent was a spy in

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Fiction is more believable when anchored in reality, and it is the disguise, he continued to flood case that early 20th century spy fiction was used to push gen- government departments with uine agendas. reports of “German officers in mufti.” off by guard dogs. On 17 man whose attention had been By the war’s end, however, evi- November, he wrote, “On two so long centered on German dence suggests that the authori- occasions…strangers have been spies that the subject had ties had finally wised up to le prowling about my property become a “monomania with Queux’s febrile imagination. In with evil intent, presumably to him.” Although le Queux, in his August 1914, paranoid that the inquire about my private Wire- own eyes, was a “person of Germans were out to get him on less station, or, possibly, to importance and dangerous to account of his counterintelli- make an attempt upon myself the enemy,” to the establish- gence work and involvement and my family.” 87 Henry never- ment he had now come to be with M05, he wrote to the Met- theless saw him as “not a per- seen as a charlatan. ropolitan Police requesting that son to be taken seriously” and local “Bobbies” give him and his refused to fulfill his request. 88 family special protection: Conclusion In a final desperate bid to Owing to the fact that for secure protection, le Queux sent While it is clear that Kipling, a number of years I have a series of fawning letters to Childers, and le Queux were interested myself in the Patrick Quinn of Scotland prone to exaggeration, their tracing and identification Yard’s Special Branch, promis- works were based on reality of German spies in ing that, if Quinn were willing, and, more importantly, reflected England and in laying le Queux would “urge certain both an idealized view of Brit- them before the proper influential gentlemen” to rec- ain’s imperial needs and a authorities…threats have ommend that [Quinn] should be desire for greater security. The been conveyed to me that placed in supreme command of anxieties they represented were the gentry in question the whole department and not entirely without foundation intend to do me bodily given complete powers, with “no and appear all the more harm! superior authority.” 89 The authentic when we remember “influential gentlemen” whose that they were often passed on A reply was sent to the effect ears the fabulist apparently by military figures. that the local police would had included Lord Leith of Fiction is more believable make a “short beat” near his Fyvie, Lord Portsmouth, Hol- when anchored in reality, and it house. Not satisfied with this, combe Ingleby, and Cecil Harm- is the case that early 20th cen- le Queux took to carrying a pis- sworth—men who believed that tury spy fiction was used to tol before protesting to Edward present police methods for deal- push genuine agendas, includ- Henry, commissioner of the ing with enemy aliens were ing calls for a national service Metropolitan Police: “Although insufficient and ineffective. I continue to be threatened and army, a larger navy, and a am unfortunately a ‘marked By now, however, no one was secret service. Though they cel- man’ by Germans, I am being going to be taken in by le ebrated imperialism and the afforded no special protection Queux’s anxieties. The Metro- qualities that built it, they also whatsoever.” 86 politan Police severed all con- represented a tool for the mobi- tact with him, even issuing a lization of opinion and stood as Over the next few months, his circular, entitled “Mr. Le clarion calls against perceived tactic was to engulf the local Queux,” warning officials that complacency in Whitehall. station sergeant with reports of he should be “viewed in the In Kim, Kipling’s characters German intruders infiltrating proper perspective.”90 Accord- speak of the need to combat his premises, only to be driven ing to the circular, this was a Russian intrigue on the North-

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For intelligence officers in the 21st century, perhaps the most important message of this story is that popular culture, howev- policy. In a significant recent er seemingly absurd, can easily translate itself into real policy. article, intelligence historian Rob Dover argued that televi- West Frontier at a time when sober debate in the armed sion shows like 24 and Spooks Britain was engaged in a genu- forces about the true nature of have an important “real world ine protracted struggle for the threat, which went some impact,” conditioning both pub- influence in Afghanistan and way to inspiring the formation lic and official discourse about the Indian borderlands. In The of the Secret Service Bureau. intelligence. 91 In the early 20th Riddle, Childers’s hero reveals Moreover, the creation of the century, that golden evening of secret German naval schemes India Political Intelligence Empire, the real world impact at the precise moment when the Office, also in 1909, along with of spy fiction was considerable. Royal Navy was being con- the long-standing employment The Riddle had a profound fronted by the kaiser’s menac- of Asian agents and the activi- effect on British naval policy. Le ing warship-building program. ties of the Intelligence Branch Queux, for all his sins, has a New naval technologies also in India, points to a similar genuine claim to be considered inspired the anxieties of le reaction by the British authori- the “father” of the British intel- Queux. In many of his novels, ties in India. In essence, then, ligence community. Were it not German spies are invariably fin de siècle spy novelists for his far-fetched tales of Ger- found reconnoitering potential gauged public opinion and tai- man espionage, it may well invasion beaches or attempting lored their works accordingly, have been months, perhaps to pilfer important naval drawing heavily on actual years, before dozing authorities secrets. events, complacency among the woke up to the need for a pro- authorities, and fear about fessional counterintelligence For le Queux, the problem was potential enemies—phenomena service. Indeed, it is chilling to not so much the Royal Navy’s which were not fictional at all. think what the consequences inability to destroy the Ger- would have been had the man Navy, but the compla- For intelligence officers in the authorities not been influenced cency of the British 21st century, perhaps the most by le Queux and persisted with government. His lobbying, like important message of this story their dilatory strategy towards that of Childers, was instru- is that popular culture, how- the intrigues of the German mental in fostering a mania for ever seemingly absurd, can eas- Secret Service. spies, but it also led to a more ily translate itself into real ❖ ❖ ❖

Notes

1. Allan Hepburn, Intrigue: Espionage and Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). 2. Frederick Hitz, The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage (New York: Random House, 2004). 3. Adam D.M. Svendsen, “Painting Rather than Photograph: Exploring Spy Fiction as a Legitimate Source Concerning UK-US Intelligence Co-operation,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 7 no. 1 (March 2009): 1–22. 4. Allen Dulles (ed.), Great Spy Stories from Fiction (Guildford: Harper and Row, 1985), xii. For an excellent treatment of the gap between real life and fictional espionage see Charles E. Lathrop, The Literary Spy: The Ultimate Source for Quotations on Espionage and Intelligence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004). 5. D. Stafford, The Silent Game: The Real World of Imaginary Spies (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1989), 6.

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Notes (cont.)

6. Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London: Heine- mann, 1985); Bernard Porter, Plots and Paranoia (London: Routledge, 1989). 7. D. French, “Spy Fever in Britain, 1900–1915,” The Historical Journal 21 no. 2 (June 1978): 355–70; David Trotter, “The Politics of Adventure in the Early British Spy Novel,” Intelligence and National Security 5 no. 4 (October 1990): 30–54; Nicholas Hiley, “Decoding German Spies: British Spy Fiction 1908–18,” Intelligence and National Security 5, no.4 (October 1990): 55–79. 8. Martin Thomas, Empires of Intelligence (Berkeley, Los Angeles. and London: University of California Press, 2008), 24–25. 9. See Peter Hopkirk, The Quest for Kim (London: John Murray, 1996); Andrew Lycett, Rudyard Kipling (Lon- don: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999); Zoreh Sullivan, Narratives of Empire: The Fictions of Rudyard Kipling (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 10. Feroza Jussawalla, “(Re)reading Kim: Defining Kipling’s Masterpiece as Postcolonial,” Journal of Com- monwealth and Postcolonial Studies 5, no. 2 (1998): 112–30. 11. Edward Said, “Introduction,” in Rudyard Kipling, Kim (London: Random House, 2000), 45. 12. Gerald Morgan, “Myth and Reality in the Great Game” in Asian Affairs 60 (1973): 55. 13. T.C. Coen, The Indian Political Service (London: Chatto and Windus, 1971); I.M. Moir, “A Study of the His- tory and Organisation of the Political and Secret Departments of the East India Company, the Board of Con- trol and the India Office, 1784–1919,” Unpublished Thesis for University College London Diploma in Archive Administration (London, 1966). 14. Morgan, “Myth,” 57, 58-9. 15. Kipling, Kim (Oxford, 1987 edn.), 3. 16. Kipling, Kim, 22. 17. Lycett, Rudyard Kipling, 107. 18. Robert Johnson, “‘Russians at the Gates of India’? Planning the Defence of India, 1885-1900,” Journal of Military History, 67 (July 2003): 697–744. 19. One of Kipling’s former lovers, Gussie Tweedell, married Colonel Crichton of the Survey Department, pro- viding Kipling with the name of his own fictional intelligence chief, Colonel Creighton. 20. Angus Wilson, The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Works (London: Book Club Associates, 1977), 90. 21. See Ronald E. Robinson, “Non-European foundations of European imperialism: sketch for a theory of col- laboration,” in ed. Roger Owen and B. Sutcliffe, Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (London: Prentice Hall, 1972), 117–42. 22. James Onley, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers and the British in the Nineteenth Century Gulf (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007). 23. TNA HD 2/1: 34, The National Archives, Kew, hereafter TNA. 24. TNA HD 2/1: 23 and 55. Entry for March 1889. 25. TNA HD2/1: 97–98, 107 and 109. 26. Gerald Morgan, Ney Elias: Explorer and Envoy Extraordinary in High Asia (London, 1971), 252–53.

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Notes (cont.)

27. Derek Waller, The Pundits (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1990); Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990); Rory Stewart, Spying for the Raj (London: The History Press, 2006). 28. Cited in W.L. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism (London: Alfred A. Knopf, 1935), I, 509. 29. Richard J. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire, 1904–1924 (London: Routledge, 1995), 10. 30. Ibid., 28–29. 31. C.A. Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780– 1870 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 3-6, 365. 32. Popplewell, Intelligence, 5. 33. Redistribution of the Army in India, 1904, CID 58-D, CAB 6/2. See also David Omissi, The Spy and the Raj (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994), 216. 34. Roberts to Charles Marvin, 14 May 1887, RP 100-1, Roberts Papers, National Army Museum, hereafter NAM. 35. Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850–1983, 2nd ed., (London: Longman, 1984), 136. 36. Roberts to Kipling, 1901, cited in The Kipling Journal, 252, December 1989. 37. S. Hynes, The Edwardian Turn of Mind (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), 26. 38. Stafford, Silent Game, 31–32. 39. E. Childers to B. Williams, 14 October 1903, Childers MSS, Cambridge. 40. Cited in L. Piper, The Tragedy of Erskine Childers: Dangerous Waters (London: Hambledon and London, 2003), 71. 41. Ibid. 42. R.J. Smith to E. Childers, 27 January 1903, Erskine Childers MSS, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2: 140 43. Ibid. 44. Piper, Tragedy of Erskine Childers, 71. 45. Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands (Penguin: London, New Ed. 2007), 93. 46. Ibid., 108. 47. “The Riddle of the Sands,” Draft Manuscript, Trinity College, Dublin. 48. “Review: The Riddle of the Sands,” Boston Newspaper, Erskine Childers MSS, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2: 138. 49. W.D. Howells to E. Childers, 19 June 1904, Erskine Childers MSS, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2: 138. 50. K.M.H. Ward to E. Childers, 27 December 1910, Erskine Childers MSS, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2: 143. 51. TNA WO 33/579, “Special Military Resources of the German Empire,” Prepared by the General Staff, Feb- ruary 1912, p. 52. 52. Lord Selbourne to S.L. Simeon, 13 June 1903, Erskine Childers MSS, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2: 139.

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Notes (cont.)

53. Ibid. 54. H. Arnold-Forster to S.L. Simeon, 12 June 1903, Erskine Childers MSS, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2: 128. 55. 144 Wolseley to S.L. Simeon, 1 July 1903, Erskine Childers Papers, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2 56. This assessment was made public by Arthur Balfour in May 1905. See Parliamentary Debates, 4th Series, vol. 146 (1905), col. 188. 57. E. Gleichen, A Guardsman’s Memories (London: William Blackwood, 1932), 344. 58. Cited in Stafford, Silent Game, 30. 59. Julian S. Corbett, War College, Devonport, to Erskine Childers, 27 January 1906. Secret, Erskine Childers Papers, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2 60. 136 Francis Gathorne-Hardy to Childers, 3 June 1906, Erskine Childers Papers, Trinity College, Cam- bridge, Box 2 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid. 63. 141 Reginald J. Smith to Childers, 4 April 1908, Erskine Childers Papers, Trinity College, Cambridge, Box 2 64. TNA WO 33/579, “Special Military Resources of the German Empire,” Feb. 1912, p. 43. 65. Andrew, Secret Service, 37–38. 66. Stafford, Silent Game, 20. 67. William le Queux, The Invasion of 1910 (Macmillan of Canada: Ottowa, 1906), Preface. 68. Stafford, Silent Game, 24. 69. Le Queux, Things I Know about Kings, Celebrities and Crooks (London: Eveleigh Nash and Grayson, 1923). 70. Ibid., 238. 71. Le Queux, Invasion, Preface. 72. “The Invasion of 1910: With a Full Account of the Siege of London,” The Times, 13 March 1906. 73. Ibid. 74. Le Queux, Things I Know, 246. 75. “The Prime Minister and Mr le Queux,” The Times, 16 March 1906, 11. In late 1906, a German writer got his own back by publishing an abridged translation, Die Invasion von 1910 – Einfall der Deutschen in England, which ended with victory for the fatherland. 76. TNA CAB 16/3, “Report and Proceedings of a Sub-Committee of Imperial Defence. Appointed by the Prime Minister to Reconsider the Question of Overseas Attack,” 22 October 1908. 77. Stafford, Silent Game; D. Trotter, “The Politics of Adventure in the Early British Spy Novel,” Intelligence and National Security 5, no. 4 (October 1990), 30–54. 78. William Le Queux, Spies of the Kaiser (Abingdon: Routledge, new Ed. 1996), Introduction. 79. French, “Spy Fever,” 358.

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Notes (cont.)

80. Imperial War Museum, Kell papers, J.E. Edmonds, “Intelligence Systems: Germany,” 9 February 1909, 2. 81. Cited in Andrew, Secret Service, 52. 82. TNA CAB 16/8, “Report and Proceedings: Sub-Committee of Imperial Defence: The Question of Foreign Espionage in the United Kingdom,” 24 July 1909. 83. Ibid. 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid., 17 Sept. 1914. 87. TNA MEPO 3/243, Le Queux to the Superintendent, T Division, Metropolitan Police, 17 November 1914. Also see TNA MEPO, Le Queux to Station Sergeant, 17 November 1914. 88. TNA MEPO 3/243, “Re Mr Le Queux,” 2 March 1915. 89. TNA MEPO 3/243, Le Queux to Quinn, 21 February 1915; TNA MEPO 3/243, “Re Mr Le Queux,” 2 March 1915. 90. TNA MEPO 3/243, “Re Mr Le Queux,” 2 March 1915. 91. R. Dover, “From Vauxhall Cross with Love: Intelligence in Popular Culture,” in R. Dover and M. Goodman (eds), Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (New York: Columbia University, 2009), 201–20. ❖ ❖ ❖

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